Why the HQ Doc was pulled from the air
"Glitch," a documentary about HQ Trivia was quietly pulled off HBO/CNN after the former HQ Trivia CEO sued. Dylan Byers, a journalist at Puck, wants you to believe that's my fault.
Earlier today, I got a text message from Dylan Byers, a media reporter at Puck. I don't have a lot of respect for Dylan because he's printed false things about me in the past and seems to have some sort of weird vendetta against me. Nevertheless, I checked his message.
"Hi Taylor — I am reporting on the 'Glitch' documentary [about HQ Trivia] and the decision by Warner Bros. Discovery to pull the film from its Max streaming service after lawyers for Yus Rusupov alerted them to the fact that an email you provided in the film, allegedly from him, was doctored.
I want to ask you, on the record, if you doctored the email … and also give you an opportunity to comment on the matter."
I was shocked. Not only would I never doctor an email, but I haven't even yet seen this documentary. I also never provided the documentary with any email. I sat for an interview for the film years ago, then lost track of the project. I shared some posts about it when it came out, but if I'm being honest I didn't like how I looked that day during filming and I know what happened to HQ Trivia, so I didn't ever tune in.
For context, back in 2017 I wrote a story about HQ’s CEO Rus Yusupov threatening to fire their star host Scott Rogowsky. Rus was so angry at me for writing a profile of Scott Rogowsky that he screamed at me by phone. The original full story is here.
I informed Dylan that I had nothing to do with the film, and this was the first time I was hearing of any lawsuit from Rus related to it.
"There was a letter that lawyers for Yusupov sent to leadership at WBD, HBO and CNN Films informing them that an email that appears in the film was doctored," Dylan said. "The email shown in the screenshot reads as follows: 'This is an unauthorized profile. You can’t write this story.'"
I went back and read my original article. The line Rus said about the “unauthorized profile” was said to me over the phone and was included in my original article (screenshot below). I guess when I was being interviewed about it years after the fact, I said that Rus had said that line by email (he said other things by email).
Of course, it's 100% on the producers of the film to fact check interviews and ensure what goes onto the screen is accurate. Instead, it appears that line was never fact checked and, more egregiously, someone working on the film created a fake email and put it up on screen.
Rus then apparently sued over the fake email that was put on screen, and got the film taken down.
I learned all of this on Friday when Dylan called me. I did not work on this film in any capacity nor did I even consult for it. But who does Dylan want to blame for this fiasco? Me!
He is falsely claiming that I, despite having zero involvement in the film, not working on the film in any capacity, and not even having seen the film, am somehow responsible for a fake email that someone on the film created.
CNN actually produced the film and when I reached out to them about all of this they didn't reply. I was able to get a hold of the director of the film, and several other people who worked on it. None of them had any idea why the doc was suddenly pulled off streaming. Scott Rogowsky, the subject of much of the film, also said he had no idea about any of this.
Everyone I spoke to who actually worked on the film, said that they would happily tell Dylan that I had nothing to do with the film and certainly nothing to do with any fact checking errors or false graphics on screen.
None of that matters to Dylan Byers, who told me that he plans to run an item on all of this, essentially blaming me for fact checking errors in a film that I didn’t work on and had no involvement in and haven’t ever seen.
He said he'll include my "explanation" but will not frame it as fact. Anyone can easily look up the film and see the credits, they can see, factually, that I had nothing to with the HQ doc or its removal.
But media like Dylan Byers don't care about the truth. As long as they can smear my name for clicks, they'll publish anything.
For more great content follow my meme page, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Instagram broadcast channel where I share links all week long.
Listen to my podcast Power User on Apple Podcasts:
Or follow Power User on Spotify: